Tag Archives: chocolate

Jan is making chocolate mousse to go with my 65th birthday dinner. For me Claudia’s Chocolate Mousse is the mousse by which all others are judged. It is however, not a health food. It has replaced cakes as the birthday treat in our house.

This year I was unable to participate in the family holiday rum-ball spectacular. I was in Italy, and also had the stomach flu. That is indeed as unpleasant a combination as it sounds.

So now that I’m stateside and better, Christmas Eve I did some pickup cookie assembling. I popped on A Very Murray Christmas (which I love but my parents can’t stand) and made my own twist on Jan’s Christmas Rum Balls. Only, I used bourbon and scotch whiskeys. The base is the same, the boozy variations follow.

For me Claudia’s Chocolate Mousse is the mousse by which all others are judged. It is however, not a health food. Jan has started to make it on anyone’s birthday. Jan spent years perfecting the techniques of making the mousse, but she got bored with making just “chocolate” mousse. She now make a different variation every time she make it.

For me Claudia’s Chocolate Mousse is the mousse by which all others are judged. It is however, not a health food. It has replaced cakes in our house as the holiday treat. Jan has spent years perfecting the techniques of making mousse, but it took her years before she dared to tinker with mom’s recipe.

Miriam requested my mother’s chocolate mousse for her birthday dinner. Jan has experimented with variations over the years, but Miriam wanted the original “plain” chocolate mousse. Jan chaffed at this restriction, until she thought of using Strauss milk.

Son-in-law Chris’s birthday is this week, so Jan decided to bake him a brownie cake to go with my Moroccan feast. Chocolate brownie cake may not be Moroccan, but Chris loves Chocolate. Sacrifices must be made.

For me Claudia’s Chocolate Mousse is the mousse by which all others are judged. It is however, not a health food. Jan usually makes it only once a year on my birthday. Jan spent years perfecting the techniques of making mousse, but she has not dared to tinker with mom’s recipe. For this year’s birthday dinner, she made some variations to make it her own. I may just have a new favorite.

Backstory:Charles Worstell, who recently passed away, loved to hold court in his local cafe. When I knew him in the 1970’s it was at the Cafe Midi. More recently it was at the Revue in the Tower District in Fresno. He would frequently bring brownies, since he loved to drink beer and eat brownies. This recipe was adapted to honor him.

Eilene had a few friends over to celebrate graduating from high school. Jan decided to make cupcakes to celebrate. Jan thinks the coffee enhances the flavor of the chocolate, so she will frequently add some to her chocolate cakes. It was a very hot day so the buttercream frosting suffered a bit.

[Back hand, stage whisper] “The secret is the chocolate is on the inside!”

The [trademarked chocolate and peanut butter confection] Challenge. This entire meal resulted from Myr having made peanut butter cookies from an Alton Brown recipe. Myr followed the recipe fairly closely, except that she did not have chunky peanut butter. She made do with smooth PB and added fresh chopped peanuts. Even after she had made dozens of large cookies, she still had a quarter of the cookie dough left over. When she told her mother about this, Jan said, “That would make a good pie crust and we could fill it with Claudia’s Chocolate Mousse. I also just bought a bottle of “Voodoo,” a chocolate and peanut stout. Karl, make a dinner with chocolate and peanuts!”